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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

rune.

A letter, or character, used in the written language of various ancient Germanic peoples, especially the Scandinavians and the Anglo-Saxons.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ɹuːn/
  1. A letter, or character, used in the written language of various ancient Germanic peoples, especially the Scandinavians and the Anglo-Saxons.

  2. A letter from any visually similar script, such as Hungarian runes (the Old Hungarian script) or Turkic runes (the Old Turkic script).

  3. A Finnic or Scandinavian epic poem, or a division of one, especially a division of the Kalevala.

  4. A letter or mark used as a mystical or magic symbol.

  5. A verse or song, especially one with mystical or mysterious overtones; a spell or an incantation.

  6. Alternative form of roun (“secret or mystery”).

    alt-of · alternative · obsolete
  7. A Unicode code point.

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Celtic *rūnābor.? Proto-Germanic *rūnō Proto-Germanic *rūnǭ Proto-Norse ᚱᚢᚾᛟ (runo) Old Norse rúnbor. English rune Borrowed from Old Norse rún, which is from Proto-Germanic *rūnō (“letter, literature, secret”), which is borrowed either from Proto-Celtic *rūnā or from the same source as it; compare Dutch rune, German Rune, Raune, Danish rune and Swedish runa. Compare roun. ; Finnic epic poem ; "code point"

verb/ɹuːn/
  1. To compose or perform poetry or songs.

    dated · intransitive · poetic
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Celtic *rūnābor.? Proto-Germanic *rūnō Proto-Germanic *rūnǭ Proto-Norse ᚱᚢᚾᛟ (runo) Old Norse rúnbor. English rune Borrowed from Old Norse rún, which is from Proto-Germanic *rūnō (“letter, literature, secret”), which is borrowed either from Proto-Celtic *rūnā or from the same source as it; compare Dutch rune, German Rune, Raune, Danish rune and Swedish runa. Compare roun. ; Finnic epic poem ; "code point"

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.